Robert Buist (November 14, 1805 Cupar Fyfe, Scotland - July 13, 1880 Philadelphia)
[From Roses of America, by Stephen Scanniello and Tania Bayard, p. 17:] By 1844, roses were so important to the business of Robert Buist, a Scottish nurseryman in Philadelphia, that he published The Rose Manual, the first book in America devoted entirely to roses. Buist, who claimed he had the largest collection of roses in the country, was one of a number of horticulturalists who encouraged ladies to grow their own plants; roses were among those especially recommended because they could be successfully cultivated indoors in containers.
[From Rose Letter, February 2013, p. 4:] Robert Buist (1802-1880) was born in Scotland and arrived in Philadelphia in 1828. Quite soon with his partner Thomas Hibbert, he opened a seed, gardening, and florist business. In the meantime he wrote two books, The American Florist Guide and Buist’s Family Kitchen Gardener. With Hibbert, he published The American Flower Garden Directory.
[From Rose Letter, May 2018, pp. 26ff.:] Robert Buist (1802-1880) had served as manager of the wellknown Edinburgh Gardens before leaving Scotland for Philadelphia in 1828. Shortly thereafter, he set up his store, Buist’s Garden Seeds. With Thomas Hibbert in 1830, he bought Bernard McMahon’s old nursery and named the firm Hibbert & Buist. In 1831 he boarded ship for England to visit nurseries, then in 1832 for France where he met Alexander Hardy of Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. He was especially excited about the Damask ‘Mme Hardy’. From then on, he began importing roses from the continent, most of them from Mr. Hardy, though some from the exceptional breeder Jean-Pierre Vibert. When Thomas Hibbert died in 1837, Buist moved his growing enterprise, renaming it Buist’s City Nursery & Greenhouses. He would move twice more. By 1845, Buist’s rose collection was the largest in the country, but Charles Hovey, also of Philadelphia, would soon surpass him. ....When Robert Buist died in 1880, his son Robert Jr., who had worked with him, inherited the nursery, operating it—and becoming a millionaire—until his death of pneumonia in 1910. The final name change of the Robert Buist company was, appropriately, Rosedale.
